Newspapers Die Out Aloud in Belarus, People Go Missing in Silence :: Charter'97 :: News

On the daily agenda of the last PACE session there was no Belarusian issue. In September last year they passed resolution, which unambiguously stated that the state of affairs in Belarus deteriorated. And for as long as the Belarusian government fails to meet democratic criteria, such as freedom of speech, investigation into disappearances, cancellation of death penalty and new electoral law, they won’t restore Belarus’ “special guest” status with PACE.

However, the Belarusian authorities don’t wish to give up capital punishment, shut down criminal lawsuits on disappearances, can’t adopt normal electoral code for many a year and now also suspended publication of a few periodicals three weeks prior to the start of PACE session. They are ostensibly saying: well, you don’t accept us, so why should we care about your claims?

The closure of newspapers, no doubt, worried everyone here – both rightists and leftists. A proposal to adopt resolution, brought up by the Lithuanian deputy Vatslav Stankevich, was signed by the representatives of three groups: liberals, socialists and European democrats.

At the Thursday session the vice-speaker of the “house of representatives” Vladimir Konoplev tried to convince the European parliamentarians, though to no avail, that the shutdown of newspapers was quite lawful. He motivated the closure by saying that “BDG” carried out a poll, entitled “Can the president use his private airplane in his own personal needs?”. No wonder, the parliamentarians didn’t believe such a lame excuse.